murraybramwell.com

March 01, 1988

Shallow

Filed under: Archive,Australian Texts,Festival,State Theatre Company,Theatre

1841
by Michael Gow
State Theatre Company
Playhouse

Theatre commissions are a bit like cargo cults. Titles are announced, brochures printed, runways are built and everybody waits for the play to land triumphantly. Except that, more often than not, it either overshoots the tarmac or pancakes unceremoniously in the midst of consternation and disbelief.

When the State Theatre Company secured the services of Michael Gow to write a play for the 1988 Adelaide Festival with additional support from the Bicentennial …

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Maximus

Filed under: Archive,Australian Texts,Festival,Theatre

Circus Oz
Rymill Park

Circus Oz were always more fun than a bucket of frogs and their Tenth Anniversary World Tour performances at the Festival must be the best yet. They have an effortless mix of physical skill, adroit comedy, musical flair and sheer good nature.

Tim Coldwell, a founding member of the company, is a genial sight in his baggy suit and size 13 sneakers and straight away the show establishes an easy rapport with the audience.

A Bicentennial …

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Day for Night

Filed under: Archive,Festival,International,Theatre

The Mahabharata
Adapted by Jean-Claude Carriere
Directed by Peter Brook
Anstey’s Hill Quarry

The Mahabharata is a colossal work. Written in Sanskrit, the first versions date back 400 hundred years BC. Then, for nearly eight centuries this epic poem grew to more than one hundred thousand stanzas. Fifteen times longer than The Bible, it is like the Old and New Testaments, all of Homer and thirty years of Mandrake and the Phantom all rolled into one.

Peter Brook and playwright …

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Flighty

Filed under: Adelaide Companies,Archive,Australian Texts,Theatre

A Flock of Flamin’ Galahs
Troupe Theatre
Centralia Hotel

Despite their “extensive and detailed” research into the life and times of five Australian eccentrics, Troupe have not managed to gather any semblance of unity or purpose into A Flock of Flamin’ Galahs, their Festival show at the Centralia Hotel on North Terrace. They seem to hope that a collection of tableaux, some hoary old audience participation numbers and an overlong serve of inferior G and S will charm audiences enough …

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Maximus

Filed under: Archive,Comedy,Festival

Maximus
Circus Oz
Rymill Park

Circus Oz were always more fun than a bucket of frogs and their Tenth Anniversary World Tour performances at the Festival must be the best yet.

They have an effortless mix of physical skill, adroit comedy, musical flair and sheer good nature. Tim Coldwell, a founding member of the company, is a genial sight in his baggy suit and size 13 sneakers and straight away the show establishes an · easy rapport with the audience.…

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